Infographics, dataviz and interactives

Category Archives: blogging

Sometime ago I was googling and wondering where all that prediction data comes from. I mean, when you type on google any word or a few words instantaneously pop up 3-5 suggestions related to your search.

Many times the suggestions are simply hilarious, and not that many matches on what I trying to find.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Anyway, all that data must be stored somewhere, so I took a walk in to the Google’s API worlds and… yes there is a prediction API service based on users inputs, categorised by languages of query’s and accumulated through years of searching. That means when you type something on Google browser, the prediction results displayed are based in the language of input, the popularity around your location thought the time and recent searches you probably made. (Probably not in that order and not always only that)

I know, I know… I’m a little freaky when I found some nice data, but there is a long time since I made a graphic for blogging just for fun, so I collect data from some popular languages to create a new visualisation just for fun.

I made the same input in different languajes:

Chinese simplified

Chinese traditional

Spanish

English

German

French

Russian

Portuguese

Indonesian

Japanese

Korean

All those languages and some others crossed with keywords like the following:

Why Chinese…

Why Chinese girls…

Why Chinese guys…

The idea was to trigger the Prediction API and in some way reflect the users behavior, stereotypes and maybe some fun content as well. Sometimes the combinations didn’t goes very well and don’t have much sense, so onces filtered, I turned the responses into color patterns all together in a single visualization.

That work has been stored for a long time, part because the office is very busy but also because I was waiting to release a new project together with a good friend but finally last December we made it. So if you want to know more about this, take a look in to our new project: Wökpö Lab.

The nice part of this is having Wokpo now I can have a lot of fun more, go and check the digital version of this project, there you can input any keyword you want in any language and see by your self results of different cultures, their stereotypes, their fetish, or their curiosities here is the link again Wökpö Interactive Lab.

Some time ago while living there in Costa Rica, near my house were these tireless birds pecking lampposts, I always asked myself how could be that these birds will support all that stress on their heads without any problems.
Drill on wood with the peak would be like ourselves we were to take a door and hitting her with the nose to open a hole in it, not to mention the pain it can cause, the head injury is a real factor, but for some reason these bird is not. So I put myself behind the track that make me understand that about the woodpeckers and the reason of because they can do that, and actually there are several studies explained it, there is even information from other peculiarities of this bird that I found wonderful, so, I decided start this infographic with this information.

First draft of the woodpecker infographic

My initial idea was to talk about those particular things in the bird head, starting with the hyoid bone which happens to be one of those secrets of the Woodpeckers, and provide information of the population and its evolution time, but as sought was more particular details that could become new parts.

Process of the main illustration.

I usually work with data and abstractions, but in this case the information is also deserved a more visual and descriptive than quantitative contribution. I start the main illustration at 400% of the size that eventually would use to gain a little more detail in the finish, it was a good idea I thought the beginning… but ended up making the process very slow production, added to this, while in Costa Rica worked full time for La Nación news, also had my students and projects with the university there, and some other professional responsibilities drowned me the time to complete this work.

Up in the picture the original assets from photoshop, down in the picture the final presentation in illustrator.

All that changed suddenly when I left three days journey to a new life in Hong Kong, as it would have very long flights to get here, I found a space to work on this and to conclude what had begun months ago.

I love to do this kind of stuff because there are not tied to the daily work, I do it for the passion about infographics, because data and visual stories fascinate me and because I like to share that wonder that I feel to find complex information and hidden and to bring it to others in a effective visual way of consumption, and also feel that awe for the information that was there before.

Final infographic about the Acorn Woodpecker.

This probably is not the best way to deploy this chart because the difficult to read it, but if you want to see in detail, maybe just click this link to my drive and read it in detail.

I hope the information here is as interesting to you as it was for me, and enjoy the piece as I enjoyed building it for you.